Proprietary Back Doors

Nonfree (proprietary) software is very often malware (designed to
mistreat the user). Nonfree software is controlled by its developers,
which puts them in a position of power over the users; that is the
basic injustice. The developers often exercise that power to the
detriment of the users they ought to serve.

While remotely allowing car “owners” to use the whole battery
capacity did not do them any harm, the same back door would permit
Tesla (perhaps under the command of some government) to remotely order
the car to use none of its battery. Or perhaps to drive its passenger
to a torture prison.

Since these accounts with hard-coded passwords are impossible to
delete, this problem is not merely an insecurity; it amounts to a
backdoor that can be used by the manufacturer (and government) to
spy on users.

The back door is in the “modem processor”, whose
job is to communicate with the radio network. In most phones,
the modem processor controls the microphone. In most phones it
has the power to rewrite the software for the main processor
too.

A few phone models are specially designed so that the modem
processor does not control the microphone, and so that it can't
change the software in the main processor. They still have the
back door, but at least it is unable to turn the phone unto a
listening device.

You might well decide to let a security service that you trust
remotely deactivate programs that it considers malicious.
But there is no excuse for deleting the programs, and you
should have the right to decide who (if anyone) to trust in this way.

Although Google's exercise of this power has not been
malicious so far, the point is that nobody should have such power,
which could also be used maliciously. You might well decide to let a
security service remotely deactivate programs that it
considers malicious. But there is no excuse for allowing it
to delete the programs, and you should have the right to
decide who (if anyone) to trust in this way.

Do other ebook readers have back doors in their nonfree software?
We don't know, and we have no way to find out. There is no reason
to assume that they don't.

HP “storage appliances” that use the proprietary
“Left Hand” operating system have back doors that give
HP
remote login access to them. HP claims that this does not give HP
access to the customer's data, but if the back door allows installation of
software changes, a change could be installed that would give access to the
customer's data.